interest check Rustic/Hearth/Faerie Fantasy

[Varon777]

So, I'm sure many of you saw the Kickstarter for Legends in the Mist, which they call a rustic fantasy game. That's somewhat similar to the hearth fantasy concept I first saw described in some of the smaller zines dealing with sword & sorcery and other fantasy genres. They're fairly similar, though, and I might even say there's a connection between them and the idea of faerie stories (both from Tolkien's essay on the subject and also stuff like Gaiman's Stardust). Not necessarily low magic, but certainly low-ish fantasy, if that makes sense.

That's been an itch that I've been looking for and haven't really found before. But I'm looking to see if there's any sort of interest in some of these games. Here's what I'm thinking:

• 'Round Robin'- rather than one person running the entire campaign, I'm thinking people can take turns running either adventures or narrative arcs. (For example- Tales from the Twilight of the Third Age)
• Collaborative worldbuilding - working as a group to piece the world together over time (also helps the GM keep things manageable )
• Feelings of community and camaraderie
• Not grimdark- but still fairly grounded, lower stakes, and smaller world (The Hobbit rather than The Silmarillion perhaps)
• Magic and Faerie is both "perilous and fair" (to quote Tolkien again)
• Maybe something like a home base or community that grows and develops over time?
• More of a narrative emphasis

So, there's not a whole of systems that seem to work well for this, but I've found a few, and I'd be flexible in doing either one. The first is Hero's Journey 2e (which I do own) and Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures (which I do not own but would probably be willing). Hilltop also seems likely, but that doesn't seem to be out yet. Other options that could work for that lower magic, historic fantasy, or archetypal fantasy might be Wolves of God: Adventures in Dark Ages England or Beowulf: Age of Heroes for that different feel. Potentially also the PbtA game Trilogy, but I don't know much about that one. Maybe Dolmenwood, if that's out yet?

 

So, I'm looking for folks who are interested in something in those sort of things, especially the chance to rotate between player and GM. If anyone is interested, what systems or settings do you think would work best?

 

 

[Eric]

Ironsworn, perhaps?

[Powderhorn]

If you're looking at Wolves of God already, I don't need to convince you on Crawford's work. I will suggest Worlds Without Number which has a low-magic option and importantly to your goal, has rules for building. Further, however, is that there's a free version and now a free SRD, so any players getting involved wouldn't necessarily have to pony up any money to dip their toe.

[Vladim]

I haven't played it, but Stonetop also comes to mind. And I know for a fact that someone is doing (or was doing) Stonetop as a solo with Ironsworn mechanics (they had a substack about it; edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/ActualPlayRPG/comments/r0oicy/ptfo_a_solo_actual_play_series_on_substack/). There was also this old thread about hearth fantasy:

https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/define-hearth-fantasy-for-me.786379/

Ironsworn: Reign could also be useful (it's a free community-building supplement).

Happy hunting!

[Varon777]

17 hours ago, Powderhorn said:

If you're looking at Wolves of God already, I don't need to convince you on Crawford's work. I will suggest Worlds Without Number which has a low-magic option and importantly to your goal, has rules for building. Further, however, is that there's a free version and now a free SRD, so any players getting involved wouldn't necessarily have to pony up any money to dip their toe.

@Vladim did tell me you would probably pop in if I mentioned Wolves of God. I hadn't considered WWN though. I know he does lots of sandbox/generated style games, but I hadn't known it was that flexible. It had always seemed very hex-crawly/Vancian Dying Earth? I'll have to look more into it and see how I can start making changes to it.

19 hours ago, Eric said:

Ironsworn, perhaps?

18 hours ago, Vladim said:

I haven't played it, but Stonetop also comes to mind. And I know for a fact that someone is doing (or was doing) Stonetop as a solo with Ironsworn mechanics (they had a substack about it; edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/ActualPlayRPG/comments/r0oicy/ptfo_a_solo_actual_play_series_on_substack/). There was also this old thread about hearth fantasy:

https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/define-hearth-fantasy-for-me.786379/

Ironsworn: Reign could also be useful (it's a free community-building supplement).

Happy hunting!

I hadn't considered Ironsworn! It had always seemed like a more grimdark style game than I was usually interested in. I'll have to go through and read that Substack to get a sense for how they're making things work. And Reign is good to know about! I picked that one up as well.

[Powderhorn]

Vladim knows me too well, it would seem :D It lends itself to more of a hex crawl, but I don't think it needs to be. I'm running one game as a hex crawl, and another as a much tighter series of one-shot adventures (with no big world map except what's been described thus far).

[Vladim]

4 hours ago, Varon777 said:

@Vladim

I hadn't considered Ironsworn! It had always seemed like a more grimdark style game than I was usually interested in. I'll have to go through and read that Substack to get a sense for how they're making things work. And Reign is good to know about! I picked that one up as well.

Ironsworn is definitely presented as a game for a grimdark-ish setting in the core rulebook, but in my experience it's not necessarily a grimdark system itself-just a grounded / low fantasy one, for the most part. It's first and foremost a narrative system, so a lot of its grittiness depends on how the GM sets up situations, and how severe the outcomes of failure ("Pay the Price") are.

[Varon777]

22 hours ago, Powderhorn said:

Vladim knows me too well, it would seem :D It lends itself to more of a hex crawl, but I don't think it needs to be. I'm running one game as a hex crawl, and another as a much tighter series of one-shot adventures (with no big world map except what's been described thus far).

Good to know! And I was looking at it, and seemed hex crawly. Which, I don't mind? Especially if there's some really decent travel and exploration mechanics already, though it is definitely a different feel.

22 hours ago, Vladim said:

Ironsworn is definitely presented as a game for a grimdark-ish setting in the core rulebook, but in my experience it's not necessarily a grimdark system itself-just a grounded / low fantasy one, for the most part. It's first and foremost a narrative system, so a lot of its grittiness depends on how the GM sets up situations, and how severe the outcomes of failure ("Pay the Price") are.

Ah, okay! Good to know! And I've been learning to the podcast the creator and his son did, and the co-op gameplay/gm-less gameplay is very interesting, and could be an interesting structure to help put together for this sort of game.

[Vladim]

4 hours ago, Varon777 said:

Ah, okay! Good to know! And I've been learning to the podcast the creator and his son did, and the co-op gameplay/gm-less gameplay is very interesting, and could be an interesting structure to help put together for this sort of game.

It's a solid framework, and GMless play and journalling games are really growing in popularity-I'd even go as far as say exploding-so there's lots of exciting and innovative tools for GMless. But you need a high-trust, good-chemistry, reliable group. So on the internet... that's lots of work to sift through players and see who sticks around. So it's not without some investment.

On the brighter side, you don't need many players-these sort of games work well with smaller groups (2-3).

Edit: If you want to see Ironsworn with higher production values, Me Myself & Die Season 2 is the place to go. But The Bad Spot is pretty good too (he did an Ironsworn mini-series).

[Varon777]

19 hours ago, Vladim said:

It's a solid framework, and GMless play and journalling games are really growing in popularity-I'd even go as far as say exploding-so there's lots of exciting and innovative tools for GMless. But you need a high-trust, good-chemistry, reliable group. So on the internet... that's lots of work to sift through players and see who sticks around. So it's not without some investment.

On the brighter side, you don't need many players-these sort of games work well with smaller groups (2-3).

Edit: If you want to see Ironsworn with higher production values, Me Myself & Die Season 2 is the place to go. But The Bad Spot is pretty good too (he did an Ironsworn mini-series).

I can see why! They're very intriuging and have a lot of potential to explore emergent narrative and stories without necessarily writing a book. Plus it's always nice when you don't need work around schedules.

And that makes sense about the kind of group you need. That would make it more worthwhile. And Me, Myself, and Die is interesting! I just started the first episode and it's good so far, and I appreciate the Norse feel!